Another quick update

Well what a cracking day it’s been.  Have spent all day down Darley and got some jobs done.  Dawn came down to me at dinner time and brought Bruce and Scruff with her along with bacon and sausage sandwiches for dinner.  Bruce now has a red bum where he leaned up against one of the side panels while the red oxide was still wet, Scruff has really enjoyed himself going for a walk with Chris Shenton up the field with Bruce, Billy, his black Labrador and Archie his lovely Pattedale Terrier.  He has been running up and down the top planks just as if he had always been on a boat and then spent the next couple of hours sleeping on my jerkin on the back end boards.  Have finished red oxiding all the hull sides and blacking all the bottoms apart form one set of panels where there is a stank welded in.

 Terry, the previous owner of Darley, was going to build a gunnel height cabin in front of the engine ‘ole where the cabin top would have formed a long ’back end board’ platform.  Inside it he was going to fit a couple of beds for when folks travelled and stayed with him.  I know its each to his own, but for me a working boat is a working boat, the one thing I disliked about my last boat Minnow was the short cabin extension and long term I would have removed it.  So I have no intention of putting extra cabin’s etc. on Darley so this stank is in the way and has got to come out.  Chris has spoken to a friend of his who said he will pop down one of the evenings this next week and remove it with his gas bottles, yippee!  All the shuts have now been creosoted as well so that’s all the inside of the hold finished. As I had blogged about last year, I run Darley with top cloths on up to the mast as underneath I have installed a unit out of a caravan with a fridge, hob, sink and cooker.  Up against the bow stank I have two blue plastic drums so that I could fill them with water if I needed to get under any really low bridges etc.  So far I have not had to do this, and they do take up a lot of room, so having taken everything out from under the cratch to paint/creosote etc. I took advantage and have also removed the two drums and built a proper shelf for the cloths and ropes etc. and looks proper tidy now.  Under this shelf I have built a unit for DAWN to keep all HER bits and bobs in (plates, cups, saucepans, frying pan and also the plastic stacking boxes we use for storing food when were on the boat) Remember the saga of the new computer screen resulting in new desk etc. well I used the boards from the old desk to make this unit. (When I took it apart and kept it Dawn said “what do you want that for?” my reply at the time was “don’t know but it will come in for something” her response “More bloody rubbish” I rest my case.  This now just leaves all the running gear, top planks, cross beams, uprights and bottoms of the mast box and stands and that will be all the hold finished, then I can make a start on the outside including counter and bows.  Need to re paint the tunnel bands, cants and rear deck on the counter,  The cants and deck on the bows and the engine ‘ole cabin top needs red oxiding then that should be us ready for this year’s shows starting in four weeks at Etruria.  Hooray, I can get out and get some boating done so if any of you see me out and about this year don’t forget to say ‘how do’ but whatever you do,

Don’t bang ‘em about

Blossom.